


Thoughts Hidden Behind A Form

by VegabondGloria



Category: Odin Sphere
Genre: F/M, Mid-Canon, Nightmares, Spoilers, Strangulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 16:30:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9616046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VegabondGloria/pseuds/VegabondGloria
Summary: Even frogs are susceptible to nightmares and Ingway wishes he could tell Mercedes more.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time in ages I ended up writing a story with Ingway in his frog form.
> 
> Also, spoilers for anyone who hasn't played through the Fate book.

It’s been awhile since he’s had any sort of nightmare, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less or deny the fear gripping his soul.

Tonight, it’s not the Cauldron spewing out its flames in a great flash of light and destroying everything he’s ever known by his foolish command, but something much more sinister. It’s the day everything turned to Hel for him and he’s looking at the best part. Velvet is clutching the sleeve of his royal garb and sobbing loudly into his shoulder while the boy looks on, eyes widened and teeth clenched together. He can’t move, he can’t do anything--he can only watch horrorstruck as an act of filicide is committed by Erion’s greatest king.

Valentine’s boney fingers wrap around Ariel’s throat and lift her off the floor. The princess dangles just above the goldenrod stones and he sees a lone tear slip out of her eye.

_ Father, please... _

His grandfather begins to squeeze, ancient nails sinking into the soft flesh of his daughter’s neck while he shouts muffled obscenities. He can remember the slurs Valentine called his mother: bitch, whore, moron, but he can only hear Ariel’s weakening cries in this awful dream.

_ I...do love...ou...fa…er _

Air continues to be cut off from Ariel’s lungs. Ingway still stands watching, unable to comfort his sister or rush to try and stop his grandfather. He already declared he didn’t love his mother; if he tries to save her, he will just reveal his lies and be executed with her, likely with Velvet following him into the grave.

_ Do you love those awful monsters you bore?! DO YOU?! _ Valentine’s words spit in his mother’s blue face.

Ariel’s eyes have begun to roll back into her head. She’s almost gone, but she still summons what little life she has left to say all that she wants to.

_ I...do...love...Vel...vet...Ing...w...ay...my... _

He finally breaks and Ingway opens his mouth even though it’s too late. Ariel’s body has gone limp and a sickening snap ends any of chance her being resuscitated, even if she was still alive. She falls to the floor like a ragdoll and Ingway screams instead of saying the words he wanted to.

~*~*~

When the frog awakes, he’s panting and he feels weak in the legs. Such creatures as he are incapable of sweating, but when Ingway looks down, he sees a pool of slime has collected around his body on the floor where he was sleeping. Ugh, the Fairy Queen will have him for making a mess…

His cheeks swell in a low croak while he gets up sore and his webbed feet make little  _ plapping _ noises while he trots over to Mercedes’s bed. Might as well check to make sure he didn’t wake her. He grabs the stool normally used by that dwarf grandpa of hers and sets it down by her bedside to avoid dripping his goo on to her sheets. That would make his head fly.

When he steps up and pokes his little head over the edge of the mattress, he’s thankful to discover that Queen Mercedes doesn’t seem to have been stirred from her deep slumber and she appears very blissful. Ingway’s large frog lips curve in a smile. He’s pleased that she seems to be sleeping well, but also a tad jealous because she seemingly can’t afford to have nightmares. Such is the beauty of youthful ignorance, he supposes.

“I wonder…” he finds himself murmuring, less to himself and more to her. “If the world somehow doesn’t end and you’re given the three years needed to mature to my age, I wonder if you’ll learn the hard truths I did.”

When he thinks about it, Ingway knows very well that they are alike in that they both lost mothers and that members of their family had more than awful tendencies to rear their ugly heads. Yet Mercedes only knows happiness from her mother and she didn’t have time to mourn Melvin and try to comprehend his traitorous behavior. He can only linger on how his mother had died hating him and cursed him for it while his father and grandfather gave him plenty of time to build a steady loathing of them.

He wonders what would happen if Mercedes  _ really _ came to know him. Would she find sympathy for his tragedy or come to distrust him? He wants it to be the latter, but something just tells him it’d be the former. That’s enough to make his heart ache.

“You won’t have time to learn, though. Once you finally keep your promise, I’ll be gone and probably die before we can intermingle more. That’s how life goes and ends, no matter how unpleasant it sounds.”

He wishes she’d learn. He’s bottled up so much over the years that no one person knows his entire story. Not even Velvet, his beloved sister and the only person he can say he loves, knows the truth about why their kingdom fell in a single disastrous night.

He briefly reaches his webbing towards the sleeping fairy, but retracts his hand and laughs dryly. Ingway laments that, as close as he has gotten to her, he hasn’t been able to find any comfort in Mercedes because she can’t see beyond the poisonous green hide he’s been forced to don. He can’t even hold and squeeze her hand because she finds him so disgusting. Might as well since he is a terrible person.

That’s an odd thought, wanting to hold her hand. He muses to himself how small and pale it would look when hidden in the palm of his larger, more tanned one. She, in general, would be so tiny compared to his true form. Not counting wings, she probably would barely match his chin in height.

“...What am I thinking?” He shakes his head and hops off the stool. Such thoughts are pointless when they can’t even  _ consider _ themselves to be budding lovers. He returns to his puddle of slime and lies down, knowing that they had their trip to Titania tomorrow and that he’d need every ounce of energy to find those blasted Wise Men.

When he thinks about those three, worry clenches his chest. They would, ultimately, be the end of this happy dream and the beginning of his final curse.


End file.
